


Better Off Alone

by ImagineDragonflys



Category: Cyberpunk Red, Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, a mess, kinda just a dasha character study with hints of burgerbang0, more prompt based fics from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImagineDragonflys/pseuds/ImagineDragonflys
Summary: “So who exactly are you looking for?” she asks as she sits down on a small armchair.“Me.”Dasha raises a well-manicured eyebrow at him, “You?”i.e. I use burgerbang0 and characters meeting as a backdrop for a pseudo-character study.





	Better Off Alone

**Author's Note:**

> this is a mess

Dapper Dasha doesn’t have friends. It’s an unspoken rule. She had acquaintances, contacts, even some people who went as far as to call her their “buddy” but she didn’t have friends.

Her public persona was as carefully constructed as her face. All designed to leave a specific impression. She was calm, intelligent, mysterious, and, more than anything, impersonal. It was her job to know people but not so much the other way around. 

This was how she preferred it. Better for business and less messy for her personal life. It was lonely at times, sure, but the benefits far outweighed the costs. The internet was unreliable but Dapper Dasha? She knew people. And she could prove more valuable than half the netrunners and hackers in the city if given the proper information (and incentive).

And for the most part she was content, ignoring any cloying feelings of loneliness in favor of the well-earned sense of contentment. Dasha was good at her job and made a damn good living through it, and that seemed to be enough.

But life, or at least a very specific person in her life, had other plans. Burger Chainz had arrived with the same jarring roar as the engine of his car. Speeding up beside her one day along a darkened street, startling her into drawing her gun, he’d rolled down the window and in that dumb, amiable voice of his, asked in earnest for her help. Said he’d heard she was the best in the business. And Dasha was far from vain but, well, something about his dumb mug and sincerity had won her over. The promise of cash wasn’t bad either. Somehow a companionship had formed between them. Dasha refused to use the word “friend”. It was too comfortable, too familiar, and worse it expressed a sense of vulnerability. 

Burger Chainz was nothing if not persistent. Even after Dasha had (to her great displeasure) failed to locate a target for him, she still couldn’t seem to shake him. His lopsided smiles and tendency to fill awkward silences with even more awkward conversation had grown on her like a rash or a particularly infectious disease. Much to her chagrin, she’d grown _comfortable_ with him. Sometimes they would even hang out when they weren’t working on a job. 

It wasn’t even that he was overly optimistic, quite the opposite in fact. Burger Chainz seemed to walk with a permanent weight on his shoulders. A haunting that lurked just behind every slightly strained smile or laugh that came just seconds too late. No, it wasn’t his attitude that had won her over. She’d hardly consider herself won over in the first place. The muscle-bound dummy just never left. Even when she’d proven to be of no use to him. Even when she was intentionally cruel in a way that made others understand it was time to _back off_. He stuck around. Because despite his outward warmth and charisma, he was profoundly lonely and because, somehow, he knew that deep down Dasha was too.

Somehow all of this had landed Dasha where she was today, Burger standing anxiously in her foyer with a small, friend in shiny spandex pants who looked just as unhappy to be here as Dasha was for the sudden intrusion on her peaceful Tuesday evening. The friend had given her a quick once over when they’d stepped in but since then had only been toying with a band around their wrist. A comm melded into their skin. Burger, as usual, seems completely unaware of the awkward tension brimming between everyone.

“Thanks for lettin’ us in,” he started, “So, Dasha. This is my buddy, Vang0 Bang0.”

He waved his hand at his friend who finally looked up from their arm forming their hands into a V and B symbol respectively, “Vang0 Bang0.”

It took all of Dasha’s willpower to suppress her eyeroll.

“Vang0, this is Dasha.”

Burger is gesticulating needlessly as he talks, a nervous tick Dasha has picked up on, “I was tellin’ him how you’re the best in the business at finding people. Or at least knowing people who know people who can find people.”

He’s speaking in his normal, casual manner but he’s stumbling the same way he does when he tries to comfort someone. Tripping over his words. Dasha glances over at Vang0, who’s running a hand through his platinum blond hair and looking like he’s already bored of the conversation.

Dasha turns around and walks to her living room, knowing Burger will follow. The space is small and sparsely decorated. Minimalist in a way that avoids clutter and discourages any clients from feeling too comfortable. Burger Chainz lumbers toward the couch his friend taking the spot beside him. Close but not _too_ close.

“So who exactly are you looking for?” she asks as she sits down on a small armchair.

“Me.”

Dasha raises a well-manicured eyebrow at him, “You?”

Vang0 glances at Burger briefly, a hint of worry in his eyes but Burger just nods to him reassuringly. Dasha notices the big guy lean more into Vang0’s space as he begins to speak, “I wasn’t always the powerful influencer and household name I am today. Actually, it’s a pretty new development.”

Dasha bites her tongue before she can say she’s never heard of him.

“He’s got the uh, the brain fog thing,” Burger chimes in.

“Amnesia,” Vang0 corrects as he rolls his eyes, “I woke up a few weeks ago in a warehouse. I didn’t have much to go on. Just a job and a name. Until this one found me.”

He nudges Burger with his shoulder and Burger smiles down at his hands. 

_Oh_, Dasha thinks.

“Don’t remember anything before that. Tried to research it a bit. Didn’t even know where to begin but Vang0 Bang0’s good with computers so I gave it a shot,” he shrugs, “Couldn’t find anything. Yet. But Burger Chainz said you might be able to help out.”

He pauses. There’s more to ask. More she _will_ ask Burger later about all of this but out of professional courtesy, she lets him continue.

“I could do this myself with enough time but he talked me into coming to you. To speed things up.”

Everything about Vang0 projects a manufactured confidence, including his words. They come off noncommittal but Dasha knows people. How they act, how they think. How desperate they all are to feel like they understand the unknowable, careless world they live in. Vang0 projects arrogance but his eyes bounce around the room, often to Burger, and they’re filled with fear.

Vang0 continues when she doesn’t respond immediately, “It’s whatever though. If you can’t do it, I’m more than capable of doing this myself.”

Dasha offers a tightlipped smile and looks at Burger who’s looking right back at her pleadingly, “Can I talk to you for a minute.”

“Sure, you alright here bud?”

“Yup,” Vang0 replies curtly and as Dasha leads Burger into the kitchen she hears Vang0 say, in a much more enthusiastic voice than she’d heard him use thus far, “Vang0 Bang0, what’s up guys-”

She tunes him out, “I don’t know what exactly you expect me to do here.”

“Uh, your job?”

Dasha rolls her eyes, “How am I supposed to do that when he has no contacts? No names? Links? Leads? Nothing with his name attached to it is more than a few weeks old. Where would I even begin?”

Despite the cybernetic red eye Burger was still capable of a compelling puppy dog face. He wasn’t even trying but he looked so goddamn desperate you’d think it was his own identity on the line here, “I don’t know Dash. I’m not a computer guy and I don’t have your connections, I got no clue how this kinda stuff works. But you’re the smartest person I know and Vang0 needs help. He asked _me_ to help him. I can’t let him down. I’m not good for much more than driving but if anyone can help him it’s you.”

His hand reached out like he meant to put it on her shoulder, then lowered as he thought better of it. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type. Instead he just said in his dumb, earnest voice “Please?”

This is why Dapper Dasha didn’t do friends. They convince you to do things you shouldn’t. Things you know will break their heart and ruin your reputation. One meeting with this guy and Dasha knows her odds of finding anything on Vang0 are as good as his own, which is to say basically nonexistent. But Burger came to her for help. He hadn’t done that since the first time they’d met. When she’d failed at her task for the first time in her otherwise successful career. And her she was about to do it again, willingly this time. Because despite all her best intentions, she cared about the big guy. And because it was obvious from the moment he entered her apartment how much he cared for the obnoxious amnesiac streaming nonsense in her living room.

Dasha sighs resolutely and meets Burger’s eyes, he’s smiling like he already knows he’s won.

“I won’t promise anything-”

She’s cut off by Burger pulling her into a tight hug.

“No. Nope. We aren’t doing this get off.”

He lets her go and beams at her, “Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever. He better pay me. And you owe me one.”

“Of course. You won’t regret this, Dasha. I swear.”

As she thinks of how much she absolutely will regret this, he brushes past her. He sinks onto the couch next to Vang0, putting his hand on the guy’s shoulder as he starts tells him about Dasha’s “process”.

_This is going to be the end of my career_, she thinks, melodramatically. 

But as she contemplates she watches a small smile grow on Vang0’s face as Burger excitedly talks him through an exaggerated version of the time Dasha had tracked a woman down with nothing more than two digits of her phone number on a dirty napkin. His hands are flying around as he talks and there’s something kinetic in how he talks. There’s a light in his eyes she’s unfamiliar with. One she’s only seen hints of in passing conversation. Her heart damn near clenches as she thinks how far gone her friend is already.

There may be little hope that anything tangible would turn up on Vang0 Bang0’s old self, but if the smile on his face was any indication, Dasha thinks, there may still be hope for these two idiots. And damn if dumb feelings don’t make you do stupid, potentially career ruining, things sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to do something a lil different cause i love dasha, i'll get back to my normal vang0chainz shit soon. give me prompts @sheriffofmagic on tumblr if you want


End file.
